And Now Fragrant Blossoms Peal in Dusk
by Seoinage
Summary: Real life catches up to Shin and Yankumi a few years after getting together. COMPLETE


**Title:** And Now Fragrant Blossoms Peal in Dusk  
**Author:** Seoinage  
**Pairing:** Sawada Shin x Yamaguchi Kumiko  
**Fandom:** Gokusen  
**Genre:** Drama/Romance  
**Disclaimer:** Gokusen © Morimoto Kozueko and various companies with rights to it.

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"So that's where you've been." His tone of voice matched the slouching posture and windswept hair, though an air of alertness glimmered in his coffee brown eyes. The faint, worried expression that had tightened his face during the search for her quickly eased off and disappeared. If he hadn't been looking up, he might have gone by this area without noticing her. Probably, but not likely, what with her jean clad leg swinging to-and-fro, drawing attention to where she was. Even so, the majority of her remained shielded from him.

Tilting her gaze down from her perusal of the full moon shining overhead, Yankumi slowly turned her head around towards where his voice came from. The rough bark supporting her back partially obstructed her view, but it was enough. She blinked down at the man standing below and slightly behind to where she sat, her brows furrowing in response to his presence.

The warmth coursing through her made the breeze feel good against her flushed skin. It was also artificially created, the almost empty bottle of sake perched precariously next to her thigh standing testament.

And she wanted more of its soothing numbness.

Sighing, she reset her gaze back towards the canopy of leaves and the moonlight filtering down overhead. Grabbing the bottle of sake and bringing it to her lips, Yankumi swigged at it with her eyes closed - shutting him out? shutting herself in? - the smooth cool liquor coursed over her tongue and down her throat. She sat on her tree limb and tried to forget, waiting for the rush of absolution to flood her. Then the coolness of the liquor turned into warmth that burst forth, making her skin flush ever pinker and her whirring thoughts even further away. "Can…cansh you shee...thahsh I'ma…" The huge bottle waved merrily to punctuate her point. "…I'ma dringing?"

Wryly, with a touch of something else accenting underneath, Shin toed the shattered glass remains of another emptied bottle at his feet. It looked as if she'd tossed it behind her after draining the thing. And it was a long ways up to where she currently sat. "Yes, I can see that." Walking forward, he came to a stop directly below her, fifteen feet separating him and the tree limb she currently called her drinking spot. "You know you could have drunk at home too. But now the question is, may I join you?"

Even as she mulled over it, prodded at it, stretch it out and stuffed it back into its four word configuration, something else bubbled inside of her wanting out. Lacking her usual ability of grace under fire, she couldn't hold it in. In fact, she didn't want to contain it. So she let it loose, feeling freed and relaxed. She hiccupped, or rather, she belched. Loudly.

The noise surprised her enough that she started giggling. She giggled and laughed, laughed and giggled. The sounds of her drunken amusement pealed out across the now darkened area even as she hugged her last bottle of sake to her like a lost child. As she rocked back and forth in mirth, tears welled in her eyes. They welled to the brink and then slipped over, running down her cheeks and touching her quivering lips. Her lips that were opened wide as she gasped, trying to catch her breath. But she couldn't. She couldn't stop, couldn't think, couldn't help that her laughter turned into sobs, those gasping things that sounded like death knells. Like dying things that knew no other way, no love, no savior, no remorse.

Until another warmth touched her, his hands cupping her face and wiping her tears away. Startled, she blearily looked towards him, seeing him crouching next to her on an adjacent tree branch hardy enough to support his weight. At that, she cried more, the bottle slipping from her grasp to fall – falling and falling and falling – down into the abyss below as she turned into his embrace. She felt his arms coming around her as she hide her face, feeling the cottoned texture of his shirt, smelling the soapy, musky scent that was him.

His breath feathered across the top of her head as he gathered her up as well as he can, what with her sitting on one limb and he crouched on another. Roughened hands rubbed her back familiarly, clenched in her loosened hair, swept down her arm as if to make sure she really was there. Light kisses touched her forehead, her exposed ear, her wet cheek. As their eyes met, he swallowed past the tightness in his throat. "I love you, you crazy woman. And we'll try again, so no more drinking for you. It wouldn't be good for our child."

At the word 'child', a shadow darkened her gaze. "Shin…What if I can't get pregnant? We've been trying all this time and I still haven't! And Grandfather…Grandfather's not feeling..." She trailed off, emotions coming up to swamp her in their blackness again.

He moved then, getting her to scoot down a little so that there was room for him to sit between her and the trunk of the tree. Settling into the same position as she'd first done when he'd come upon her, he urged his wife to lean back against his chest. He cuddled her as she cried her deep grief at the ill health of her beloved grandfather and the lack of her pregnancy. He rocked her slowly, gently, tirelessly as she let it all out. It was something they both needed.

And some time later, when she had winded down to a few hiccupping sobs, he continued to sooth her. "Shh…We will get pregnant. And then Grandfather will be bouncing his great-grandchild upon his knee. He's a tough old cookie who wouldn't miss this. We will, Kumiko. We will."

His voice rumbled near her ear even as she felt it vibrate from his chest into her back, a bit deeper than how he'd sounded when they first met. She could feel his tensile strength in the arms that cradled her, feel the steadiness in his legs that cradled her own. Those same legs had seen him through all the trials and training that'd taken him from a high school ringleader to that of the Ooedo group's leader today. Though he no longer dyed his hair that striking red which had given him the nickname of "Young Master Red Lion", he was still her Shin. Still the person who'd seen through her disguise to the woman that hid below. Still hers.

Some time back, she'd turned her head into his chest to close out the world. Now she turned so that she could hear his heartbeat. She, Yamaguchi Kumiko, the one who'd wanted to become a school teacher to help her students, was now the one to be helped by a former student. Not just any student, no. He was one who'd become a friend and then so much more. Yankumi closed her eyes, breathing in deeply, and used a non-wet part of his shirt to rub her dripping nose with. "I'm just afraid, Shin. That Grandfather won't…That he won't be there to see our children when they're born. I want that! I want that for him. I want that for me. I want that for our kids. He's such a great man, and I don't want him to leave us."

Ignoring what she'd just done to one of his favorite shirts, Shin tilted her face up and wiped the remaining tears and snot from her face with the cuff of one sleeve. "I know, and I don't want him to leave us either. And this isn't something that you should blame yourself. Because that's what you're doing. We're in this together, you hear me?" He paused at that, to make sure that she was listening and not just brushing it off.

At her nod and lessening sadness, he continued, "We're making this baby together, and we will. And if we don't, that's something we'll work through _together_. But Grandfather wouldn't want you to stress out over this. He'd say something like," he shifted his voice to imitate the older man's, "'Now Kumiko, time waits for no man, especially those who follow our path. I've been lucky with all the years I've had as it is. Though I'd love to be here to welcome your children into our family, should I not be, I'll have counted the years with you the best and the brightest.'" Nodding and smiling gently down at her, Shin cleared his throat to speak again in his own voice. "Yeah, he'd say something like that. And I'd feel the same way." He leaned down, his lips touching hers delicately. "I think that," another kiss, "my time with you," and another, "is more than I," followed by a kiss that lingered longer and more yearningly, "could ever have asked for."

Softly, as if those words and kisses were lighter than butterfly wings, Kumiko heard and felt what he was trying to convey. They settled on and then wrapped around her, as if to hold her safely away from the blackness of her mental abyss. And with each one, a glimmer returned to her, the light getting brighter to sooth the rough edges of her burdens. A small sound, caught between a sigh and a moan, escaped her as she returned his deepening passion, slim fingers threading through his hair. The cold night air took on a new feel as the heat rose between them. His name rang in her head, around and around and around. _Oh Shin, Shin...I love you._

And down below waiting, the fragrant blossoms with their buds tightly closed under the shining moon, will once again open up to the patient sun.

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**Author's Note:** This was written in response to a request by Moon Klutz. 

**Constructive comments and critiques welcomed and adored. :).**


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